Switzerland
by MuchTooHighACost
Summary: Tony meets a beautiful woman in the bathroom in Bern on New Years Eve, 1999.


**I've decided to submit my ridiculously late contributions to Pepperony week! They probably won't be in order, because life. This is for Day 6: AU.**

**I have a hard time writing AU in general, especially with Iron Man. I feel like so much has to happen for Tony and Pepper to get together at the end of IM2. (He needs to realize how important she is to him, not just want her; she needs to become more than just his assistant; he needs to almost die to understand what he has to do... yada yada yada.) But AU can be fun, and I definitely had fun with this one. So enjoy!**

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_Bern, Switzerland. December 31, 1999._

With the unrelenting bass of Cher's "Believe" still pounding in his head, Tony Stark stumbled toward the illuminated restroom signs. Thank goodness the stick figure man and woman symbols were universal. He didn't know a lick of German. Or Swiss. Or whatever it was they spoke in Switzerland.

The bathroom was dimly lit with small orange squares tiling the walls and floor. He was drunk, but not as drunk as he should have been—it was New Years, after all, and he had a reputation to uphold—and not nearly as drunk as he had been in the past, but he was just drunk enough to be stopped in his tracks as he turned to face the wall across from the double vanity sinks.

Where were the urinals?

"Hey. This is the ladies room."

The voice came from the furthest stall where, he noticed for the first time, a woman with a wad of toilet paper to her nose stood in the stall doorway sniffling. She was tall and slim and pretty.

"It's a free country," Tony said with a shrug.

"Actually, Switzerland is a federal directorial republic." The woman sniffed and wiped her nose.

Tony narrowed his eyes at her in annoyance. "Whatever."

He pushed open the stall door beside hers and unzipped his pants.

Behind him, he heard the woman scoff. "Really? Really?"

"If you don't like what you see, you're free to leave," Tony drawled. "But most people don't."

"For the record, I didn't _see _anything," the woman intoned, her voice rising in pitch. "And secondly, I think if any of us should leave, it should be you, because I was here first."

The last few words of her sentence were lost as Tony kicked the flush lever with his foot. He walked to the sink, washed his hands, lathering thickly on both front and back, then drying them off with the complimentary warmed hand towel that lay in a basket next to the bar soap.

"Either," he said, looking the woman in her eyes, which he suddenly noticed were incredibly blue. And rimmed with red. Had she been crying when he'd walked in?

"What?" she snapped, her lip curling in a way that wasn't unattractive.

"You said, 'if _any _of us should leave,' but what you should have said was, 'if _either _of us should leave.' Since there's only two of us. _Any _would imply the presence of at least three or more parties."

"Whatever," she sighed, and deposited her tissue into the trash. She retreated back into her stall to grab another fistful of paper.

"Breakup?" Tony offered. Subtext: are you single?

"I kind of quit my job earlier this evening," the woman said with another sniff.

"_Kind of_?" Tony echoed, hopping up to sit on the counter. "In my experience there's not really a gray area there."

"I don't like to let people down," the woman said.

"Who does?"

She shrugged, one freckled shoulder rising to nearly brush the bottom of her earlobe. "Nobody, I guess."

Tony cracked a smile. "See? Betcha don't feel so alone now."

"Who said I felt alone?" Her eyes teased him and she was smiling. She had a killer smile. One that made whoever she was smiling at feel very lucky.

"Crying in a bathroom on New Year's Eve? You're right, you're probably in the majority right now."

She shoved his shoulder in a manner that was surprisingly familiar considering they had only just met, a beaming smile peeking out from behind her rose-colored lips.

"Why'd you quit?"

The woman chuckled. "Have you ever been at your job and thought, 'I don't agree with anything this company is doing and I don't like the people I work with and I dread coming in every day?' Well that's how I've felt for the past three years. And I don't know if it's the vodka or that it's a new year and I want some stupid new beginning but I couldn't do it anymore. So I told my boss tonight before the party that I quit. And he hasn't acknowledged it all night. He's still giving me orders like I'm his personal lackey."

"Is that the official title on your business cards?" Tony jibed. "Personal lackey?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, a subtle gesture that was somehow already familiar. Her lips were pursed, but not in a menacing way. In a way that made him want to kiss her.

"Has anyone ever told you you're kind of an asshole?" she chided.

"Loads of times. Has anyone ever told you that you're—"

She held up a hand to stop him. "Don't. Don't ruin this otherwise pleasant interaction with a pickup line."

"A little cheeky, are we? I'm surprised, you seemed so modest."

"I _am_ modest," she assured him. "I've just had a couple drinks and I quit my job, and frankly I'm the most unstable I've been my whole life."

Tony couldn't stop a grin from spreading across his face. "Your _whole _life? Really? You didn't have, like, a rebellious teenage phase where you dyed your hair black and wrote poetry?"

"No, did you?"

"Well, I was a little busy graduating from college when I was that age, so…"

Her mouth dropped open in a laugh. "You don't have to do that. Make up lies to impress me."

"It's not a lie," he said. "I'm a genius."

He pointed to his name tag, which read "You Know Who I Am" in blocky, all-caps lettering. This was a man who was not afraid to make mistakes.

"But I don't," she said.

She was close now, he wasn't sure when it had happened. But she was close to him, nearly standing between his legs as he lounged on the counter. She placed a hand to the side of one leg and looked up at him through long eyelashes. She smelled exactly as a woman should, though he couldn't put his finger on what that meant. He just knew that she was it.

"Then we're even," he said, his voice low in his throat, though he hadn't meant for it to be. "Because I don't know your name either."

Her lips curled into a contagious smile again. "It's Virginia."

"Virginia?" He made a face. "You don't have a nickname or anything?"

"Trust me, it's even worse."

"It's kind of hard to top Virginia."

"Really? You think it's that bad?"

Her eyes were so big and so blue but he wasn't quite drunk enough to kiss her because there was something about her that didn't deserve to be conquered or taken. She deserved to be wooed and wined and dined and he would do all of those things. One day.

"I don't think it's that bad," he said, truthfully.

Her smile turned coy, and she placed her other hand on the countertop next to his other leg, and he could feel the warmth from her wrist radiating against the outside of his thigh.

There was a loud bang as the door to the bathroom slammed open and two very drunk girls led their even drunker friend into a stall. Virginia jumped back, startled by the noise, and Tony tried to grab her wrist but she was too quick for him.

"You're gonna make it!" one of the girls assured her friend.

"You'll feel so much better after it's over!"

"Get _away _from me!"

Tony met Virginia's gaze and grimaced. She looked concerned but not enough to stick her nose in someone else's business. Now was the time to proposition her.

"Listen, come on back out there, I'll buy you a drink—"

"Boss!" An all-too-familiar voice echoed throughout the women's bathroom.

Happy appeared from around the corner, noisemaker in hand. "There you are, I knew you'd be in here."

"I'll be out in just a sec, Hap—" Tony tried to assure his guard that everything was fine, but then he noticed Virginia.

"Is this guy bothering you?" Happy asked her, only half-joking.

She held up both her hands adorably. "No, not at all, quite the opposite."

"Yeah, well he was doing quite the opposite to the girl with the eyes out there, too. Watch out for this one."

Tony winced and put an arm around his guard's shoulders. "You're supposed to have my back, man, not give me up."

"Hey man, I'm just doing my job."

"Are you drunk?" Tony asked. "Not that you're not allowed to be, I mean it's New Years—"

"I think I'd better go," Virginia said finally, slipping past the both of them.

Before he could stop himself, Tony blurted to her retreating form, "I'm gonna find you one day!"

She turned over her shoulder just before slipping out the door and said, "I'd love to see you try."

And then she was gone.


End file.
